Temperature Investigation on 3C-SiC Homo-Epitaxy on Four-Inch Wafers

Materials (Basel). 2019 Oct 10;12(20):3293. doi: 10.3390/ma12203293.

Abstract

In this work, results related to the temperature influence on the homo-epitaxial growth process of 3C-SiC is presented. The seed for the epitaxial layer was obtained by an innovative technique based on silicon melting: after the first step of the hetero-epitaxial growth process of 3C-SiC on a Si substrate, Si melts, and the remaining freestanding SiC layer was used as a seed layer for the homo-epitaxial growth. Different morphological analyses indicate that the growth temperature and the growth rate play a fundamental role in the stacking faults density. In details, X-ray diffraction and micro-Raman analysis show the strict relationship between growth temperature, crystal quality, and doping incorporation in the homo-epitaxial chemical vapor deposition CVD growth process of a 3C-SiC wafer. Furthermore, photoluminescence spectra show a considerable reduction of point defects during homo-epitaxy at high temperatures.

Keywords: 3C-SiC homo-epitaxy; CVD; KOH; bulk growth; growth temperature; stacking faults.